Steven Soderbergh’s filmography is one of the most sporadic in recent memory — he’s directed everything from Ocean’s Eleven to Magic Mike to sex, lies, and videotape — but somehow, Presence serves as a foray into something completely new from Soderbergh. Since its premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, a full year before its wide release, I have been eagerly awaiting Soderbergh’s ghost story. While reviews have been mixed, I believe Presence is a uniquely poignant film that should not be overlooked.
Presence follows a normal, suburban family who move into a new house after a tragedy, and find that their house is haunted. The setup to Presence is standard — the twist comes from how the story is told. The film is entirely shot from the point of view of the ghost. This presence, and therefore the viewer, takes on the role of a voyeur as the camera moves throughout the house, catching the family in their most vulnerable moments. Through the perspective of the presence, audiences begin to see the parts of the family members that they try to hide from the public. Because the presence is tied to the house, the camera never moves beyond its walls, allowing a glimpse at the private life of a family that puts on a mask in public.
Throughout the film, a complicated family dynamic takes shape. The presence is most drawn to the daughter Chloe (Callina Liang), whose recent experience of losing her best friend leaves her vulnerable to the supernatural. Meanwhile, her mother, played by Lucy Liu, forms an uncomfortably obsessive bond with her son, Tyler (Eddy Maday), while ignoring her daughter completely. Chloe’s only ally is her father, Chris (Chris Sullivan), whose relationship with his wife is quickly growing tenuous. These relationships, unseen by the public, are revealed by the presence’s gaze as it tries to help Chloe navigate life after loss.
While the horror genre often uses ghosts as a metaphor for trauma, Presence literalizes this in a way I have never seen before. The titular “presence” stands in not just for Chloe’s immense grief and pain, but acts as a protector that tries to keep her from succumbing to the same fate.
Presence serves not just as a technical exercise for Soderbergh, as many have claimed, but uses its technical innovation to tell its story in an entirely unique way. The presence’s perspective allows audiences to see these characters in moments that may seem insignificant or slight, and certainly would not be included in a different film, but that reveal their deeper motivations. Particularly, the way the camera lingers on Chloe in the most banal moments makes her a fuller character that viewers feel connected to, much like the presence. This effect is also carried by Callina Liang’s performance, which presents Chloe as such a sympathetic character.
Finally, the perspective of the presence and its immense focus on Chloe brings to light how teenage girls’ struggles are ignored. Because Chloe’s friend died of a drug overdose, her father’s concerns that girls at her school may be targeted are ignored. Chloe’s mental health struggles are brushed off, especially by her mother, who believes that Tyler’s athletic prospects are more worthy of her attention. The presence is the only entity in the house that sees everything Chloe is going through, and it is only the empathetic presence that takes action to save her. I was most reminded ofTwin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, in which viewers are forced to watch as the teenage protagonist comes closer and closer to her deadly fate, as the many bystanders in her life fail to act. Here, however, the voyeuristic gaze of the viewer is made physical, and Chloe is given the chance to live.
I wasn’t sure what to expect from Presence, but what I found was something much more poignant than I ever imagined. The choice to shoot from a first person perspective was obviously not just a technical experiment, but something that propelled the story forward.
Nicholas York is a sophomore in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations. He can be reached at nay22@cornell.edu.
